From the Dumpster to Your Table

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Art Kumbalek

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, one could say I may be down in the dumps but good these days, not only from pain-in-the-neck, but on account of the coming up right around the corner from my dinky apartment of the Bastille Days “Drink Beer in the Street and Oui-Oui in Les Boulevard” Fest—where us Milwaukeeans are intended to celebrate the contributions of French culture, which, as far as I can figure, are boring-ass philosophy, surrender, stinky cheese/Jerry Lewis idolatry, the guillotine, what-the-who-and-what B&W New Wave films from the ’60s and focking mime—you think you got a tough box to get out of? See: Cool Hand Luke. Now that’s a box, I kid you not.

And then we also got the hoopla celebration of the Harley-Davidson Homecoming 120th anniversary all over town this weekend (is it just me but doesn’t the HD seem to have some kind of anniversary around here like every of month?)

Anyways, I delved into my typical heady research to find who was the first U.S. president to ride a motorcycle, and all I could find is that William McKinley was the first president to ride in an automobile. Swell. Unfortunately for President Bill that automobile happened to be a 1901 electric-motor ambulance that carried him to the hospital after being assassinated to death in Buffalo, N.Y., by one Polish guy Leon Czolgosz from out of the Motor City. Perhaps the first recorded record of motorized road rage upon American soil? Hey, you tell me.

And then I’ll ask you this: What's the difference between a Harley-Davidson and a Hoover vacuum cleaner? Give up? OK. It’s the placement of the dirt bag, don’t you know. Ba-ding!!

And once again, Brewtown’s French fête coincides with the running-of-the-bulls shit fiesta they got going over in your Pamplona, Spain, and thereabouts—which reminds me of an idea I’ve had many times over the years on how our French-palooza could attract a more culturally diverse patronage—a patronage that would be brave, not cowardly, in pissing away their spend-able francs on parlez-vous and what-not.

I suggest our Downtown French shebang could garner the annual international attention and fervor like the “running of the bulls.” So why not during the Bastille Days, we periodically let loose a couple, three rampaging bulls at the swell corner of Jefferson & Wells so as to attract the wealthy international traveler bent on confronting death? Hey, you tell me.

And I’ll remind you’s that here we be mid-July so my monthly wall calendar, “Strumpets of the South Seas,” tells me. Seventh month of the year, the traditional time of year for the workingman to take a piss-ant seven days off from labor-hell and blow it away on a so-called vacation, vacances, pardon my French.

And I’ll tell you’s, as a guy my age I no longer “vacation” these days. My excursions currently are limited to, and do not exceed, a trip to the bathroom, kitchen, couch and a periodic trek to the food mart for a slab of baloney, a loaf of white and box of popsicles; although, there is the occasional bus/cab ride journey to the doctor’s office for an unexpected case of what-the-fock.

Yeah yeah, even in the past, my vacations never turned out the way I’d prefer. You want to know what my vacations were like? They’re like what happened to this guy I know. Here:

One day this guy I know is on his way to lunch and walks right by a snazzy travel agency with a sign in the window that says, “Four-day cruise down the Murray River—$40 all inclusive!” 

He can’t believe the price, and a nice relaxing river cruise was exactly what he had in mind for vacation that year. So he races into the agency, slaps two Jacksons down on the counter and tells the agent he wants to book a Murray cruise. Agent says, “Very good, sir,” whips out a baseball bat and knocks the guy stone-cold out.

So he comes to and finds himself strapped to a floating log racing down a white-water river. A little ways down, he sees another guy strapped to a log rolling down the other side of the river.

“Forty-dollar Murray cruise?” he shouts out. “Hey, you betcha,” says his fellow cruiser on the other side. 

“This blows. I’ll bet we don’t even get breakfast,” he yells. “I don’t know,” says the other guy, “we did last year.” Ba-ding!

Anyways, I got to go. But listen, as a perennial candidate to be your next office-holder for whatever office needs holding here in the United Grains of Amber, I’ve heard tell that our Badger State is one of these so-called “swing” states that could flip either way come the election of this-and-that. And so I remembered a years-ago campaign tour I undertook of outposts like your Ladysmith, Cadott, Cornell, Black River Falls, Solon Springs, Crandon Town of Barnes, where I attempted to bamboozle the bumpkins with my glad-hand just like a regular P.T. focking Barnum. 

But I’ll tell you from that past experience, “swing” is not the first word that comes to mind during a jaunt through these hinterland haunts, unless come late Saturday night you hang yourself from a beam in the basement, just for something to do. 

And it’s a mystery to me that candidates for office believe that a quick stop here, a pop-in there, can do very much to jack-up the opinion of elected representatives held by the bucolic wing of the electorate. Cripes, I remember a story from ago that shows just how much work needs to be done to improve a would-be statesman’s standing with the cornfield crowd. I don’t know if this story’s true but here it is anyways, what the fock.

On Friday afternoon, the entire state legislature of a state located not-even-close to either coast was aboard the official state bus touring a remote rural area when the driver lost control and crashed the bus into a ditch. Sometime later, a local farmer sauntered by and upon finding the politicians lying in the road, buried them.

It was reported that county sheriffs then arrived on the scene just as the farmer finished tamping the dirt down over the last member of this state’s legislature. Upon questioning the farmer about the wreck, a sheriff asked, “So you buried ALL the politicians? Were they all dead?”

The farmer reportedly answered: “Well sir, some said they weren’t, but you know how them politicians lie.”

Ba-ding! ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.